


as we're drifting off to sleep, all those dirty thoughts of me (they were never yours to keep)

by earlgreytea68



Category: Fall Out Boy, Inception (2010)
Genre: Brief Mention of Suicide, Crossover, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-21
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-18 09:04:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21508576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlgreytea68/pseuds/earlgreytea68
Summary: Can you incept someone into falling in love?
Relationships: Arthur/Eames (Inception), Patrick Stump/Pete Wentz
Comments: 224
Kudos: 214





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This has been A Semester, let me tell you. So here, have a fic. 
> 
> Q and whirling won me in the Inceptiversary auction and requested a Fall Out Boy / Inception crossover, with a side order of feeling-poorly Eames. I think they got more than they bargained for (haha see what I did there). 
> 
> At any rate, thank you so much to them for the incredibly inspiring prompt and for being so supportive as this spiraled into more and more plot lol. It was fun to revisit dreamsharing again!
> 
> (title from [American Beauty / American Psycho](https://youtu.be/LGUnY6WFlws?t=128))

When Arthur heard from Cobb these days, it was ordinarily to ask some random thing about kids that, for some reason, Cobb thought Arthur might know. _How should I handle a dead goldfish?_ And _What are the symptoms of an ear infection?_ Arthur had possibly spent a little too long as Cobb’s personal Google. He was always tempted to text back, _GOOGLE THIS_.

But he didn’t. Old habits died hard.

Anyway, it was always nice to have a reason to ignore Eames.

“I know you want me to think you’re furiously sexting,” remarks Eames now, “but I know you’re always talking to Cobb.”

Arthur ignores him.

Not that that ever shuts Eames up.

“Cobb’s basically your only contact. Is he the only contact in your phone? Your phone contacts are Dom Cobb and a tailor,” muses Eames.

“I know everyone in dreamshare,” Arthur says automatically, without looking up from the text Cobb just sent him.

“‘Course you do, darling,” Eames agrees negligently. “You know, I bet you _would_ sext furiously. You’d be the only person in the world who sexts furiously.”

“I know everyone in dreamshare,” Arthur repeats, dismissing Eames’s nonsense, “but I don’t know this Pete Wentz. Do you?” Arthur shows Eames his phone, where Cobb’s text reads just _Do you know who Pete Wentz is?_

Eames’s mouth quirks. “Well,” he says, and doesn’t say anything else, just sits there looking like a fucking cat eating a canary.

“Well, what?” Arthur demands sourly. “Alright, fine, you know someone in dreamshare I don’t know, whatever, he’s probably not very good, I know everyone who’s _good_.”

“Arthur,” Eames says, sounding so endlessly amused, because Eames always sounds _so fucking amused_. “Calm down. I don’t know anyone in dreamsharing you don’t know. I pay attention to celebrity dick pics more than you do.” Eames pulls his phone out.

Arthur knits his eyebrows together. “What?”

“When there’s a dick pic around,” Eames says, fingers tapping on his phone, “I pay attention to it.”

“Okay, I’m talking about Pete Wentz, this is not an excuse for you to show me a dick pic, Eames.”

“Darling, I’d never show you a dick pic when you could so easily see the real thing,” Eames retorts smoothly, holding his phone out.

Arthur winces at Eames’s comment and then again when he sees Eames’s phone screen.

“Not my dick pic, kitten,” says Eames, pulling his phone back in. “Pete Wentz’s. Not a bad dick. I mean, what you can see of it there. It’s not the best dick pic in the world. But it’s not bad ink, at least.”

“Why do you have a picture of Pete Wentz’s dick?” Arthur asks. He feels like this is all a lot and he can hardly be expected to process it while thinking of dick pics on Eames’s phone.

“Who doesn’t, pet?” purrs Eames.

Arthur glares at him.

“Well, I mean, aside from you, and only because you always miss everything fun. He’s in a band, Arthur. He had a dick pic get leaked. That’s the only way I know him.” Eames shrugs and tips his chair back. “Don’t worry, I don’t have secret dreamsharing knowledge you don’t.”

In a band? Arthur frowns and looks at Cobb’s text. What could Cobb possibly want to know about a band for? Surely Philippa’s not old enough yet to be developing crushes on bands already? Arthur tries to do the math on having crushes on inappropriate musicians with dick pics floating around the internet, decides there’s never a good age for that, and looks at Eames suspiciously.

Eames is being conspicuously interested in a single thread dangling from the cuff of his shirt.

Pablo, who’s theoretically the architect for this job they’re on although Arthur thinks he’s terrible and has been making Eames work late at night to fix everything he does wrong, says, “Do you think you two could join the rest of the class?” and lifts his eyebrows at them.

“Sure,” says Eames jovially.

Arthur contemplates kicking his chair over, decides instead to text Cobb back. _Why?_

The reply reads, _He wants to hire us to try an inception. Do you think you can loop in Eames?_

Arthur almost laughs. He glances at Eames and thinks of the dick pic on his phone and texts back, _Probably_.

***

Pete Wentz was in the middle of a bad month or, like, _year_ , or maybe _decade_ , when he heard about Somnacin.

Okay, the truth was, not everything about the past decade had been bad. For every moment of soul-crushing faith in his own self-destructive stupidity, there had generally been a moment of Patrick, literally tying his shoes for him, or zipping up his hoodie, and saying, _It’s okay, you’re okay, we’re okay, here we go_. Patrick balancing out the darkness, Patrick tugging hard to keep inching him out of the muck that sucked at him constantly, and Pete totally understood why Patrick had finally had enough. Who wouldn’t eventually have enough of that? Who wouldn’t eventually be exhausted by Pete? Patrick had lasted so much longer than Pete would ever have thought. It was a good run, nothing to be ashamed of, lots to be proud of.

It was Pete Wentz’s entire life _ending_ , much more thoroughly than he’d achieved thus far, because always before there’d been a phone call and a Patrick on the other end.

Patrick, his true blue. The night Pete Wentz learned about Somnacin, he had a notebook open on a dingy hotel room bed and he was trying to write, write out some of the choking oily blackness that was leaking steadily into the hole created inside when Patrick left, and he was getting fucking _nowhere_ , and he was never going to get anywhere, he was always going to be _just like this_.

_Dear future self_ , Pete wrote in his notebook, _I hope it’s going well!_ He stared at the stained ceiling over his head as the room shook slightly with a nearby airplane taking off or landing. He added to the notebook, _I’m drunk on cheap whiskey in an airport hotel_.

And then he thought, _Fuck the whiskey, I need something stronger_.

Pete found himself regarding his army of prescription pill bottles, and thinking of a night when he’d done something similar, and that night there’d been voices on the end of the phone willing to help him, teary-eyed people to be there when he woke up and yell at him not to be so stupid ever again (this was Patrick’s particular brand of comforting). There would be no one willing to take his call if he did it this time, he knew.

“No,” he said out loud, and stepped away from the inviting tableau on the tabletop. That wasn’t what he wanted. He looked at the lines written to his future self and thought, _Yeah, you just wrote a letter to your future self, let’s have there be one_.

Pete looked at the empty whiskey bottle and thought that was probably his best bet.

So he pulled himself together enough to stagger outside, and then stood on the sidewalk blinking, disoriented. He didn’t know where he was, exactly, and it was nighttime, and he was in the middle of fucking suburbia, what the fuck, he’d forgotten, and, like, he couldn’t drive, he wasn’t in any fit state, and he didn’t want to figure out where any of the fucking entourage was, he’d been avoiding the entourage.

He chose a direction and he started walking.

A liquor store appeared like a mirage, and it was while he was in it, plucking himself a fresh bottle of whiskey, that the guy sidled up to him.

“You look like someone who could use some sleep,” the guy said.

Pete thought of the bottle of the sleeping pills he was decidedly _not_ taking. He said, “Not really, no,” and picked up a bottle of whiskey instead.

“No, no, I mean, to sleep to _dream_.” The guy seemed to think this was meaningful.

Pete didn’t have the energy for this. “Look, man, I just want to—”

“Come on,” he said, and suddenly he was holding out a vial, “it’s _totally_ better than whiskey, you get to live whatever dream you want, who wouldn’t want that.”

And Pete stared at the vial and said numbly, “Hang on, I get to live whatever dream I want?”

It started like that, so, Pete thinks now, _innocent_. A dream where Patrick didn’t leave, where Patrick stayed. A dream where Patrick smiled at him, laughed with him. A dream where Patrick kissed him, soft and sweet and fond, kissed his lips and his temple and that secret spot behind his ear. They were gentle dreams, gauzy with affection, Pete could drown in the feeling of being loved, it was nice.

It wasn’t nearly enough. Patrick was always a pale imitation of his Patrick, a projection of what Pete wanted him to be but that was wrong, it was _wrong_ , Patrick should be challenging and difficult, Patrick should frown at him and shout at him, the point was that Patrick always made him feel loved by the force of his constant attention, the furious depths of emotion Patrick directed at him. Pete hated this Patrick who wasn’t that, hated the simplicity of what the dreams offered him.

He heard about forging after that, but the forgers never got Patrick right, ever, they were always copying some public version of him that wasn’t right.

Pete, frustrated, decided to quit Somnacin, cold turkey, it was stupid and pointless.

His dealer, of course, wasn’t thrilled with his decision, and called him up to wheedle at him.

Pete, past caring about anything, said, “What is the fucking point? I don’t even get the point of this drug. The dreams aren’t that good.”

And his dealer said, “Well, the dream-criminals disagree with you there,” with a little laugh.

And that’s how Pete learned about extraction.

And then Pete learned about inception.

And then Pete got this idea.


	2. Chapter 2

Eames is standing in front of a house that’s exactly the sort of sleek and modern he associates with Arthur. 

“This is your kind of house, darling,” he remarks. 

Arthur wrinkles his nose, bless him, because Arthur has never met anything he couldn’t criticize. “This is my kind of house done as tacky as possible.” 

Eames’s lips twitch. “You need  to have some tackiness in your life, pet. That’s why you have me.” 

Arthur gives him a baleful look. 

Cobb says, “Okay, you two, can we do this later?” 

“Yeah, we’re  _ working _ now,” Arthur says, trying what Eames is sure he thinks is a quelling look. 

Eames smiles wider. 

Pete Wentz answers the door. 

Aside from his dick pic, everything Eames knows about Pete Wentz comes from the file Arthur handed him the day before.  He doesn’t look anything like  the pictures Arthur included. Those pictures were full of  drama in the form of eyeliner and side-swept bangs. The person who answers the door has no eyeliner, and his hair is brutally short , and he’s wearing  baggy sweatpants and a t-shirt that’s seen a multitude of better days.  He’s scruffy-looking, and that wouldn’t be unattractive, except that it’s such an exhausted brand of scruffy, dark circles around his eyes like it’s been days since he last saw sleep. And Eames is in dreamshare: he’s an expert in sleeplessness ; this bloke needs some sleep. 

He has brown eyes that flicker uncertainly between the three of them. There’s something smaller about him than Eames expected, not just that he’s shorter than Eames thought but that he was expecting some kind of  swagger out of a rock star, and instead  Wentz seems drawn-in and shy. 

Wentz’ s eyes settle on Arthur and he ventures, “Mr. Cobb?” clearly guessing. 

Eames bites down on his smile, because  _ obviously _ you would assume Arthur is the one in charge here. 

Arthur says briskly, “No, I’m Mr. Arthur, I’m Mr. Cobb’s associate. This is Mr. Cobb.” 

Cobb does something that’s a cross between offering a hand to shake and waving. 

Wentz looks at him blankly. 

Eames says heartily,  “And I’m Eames.” 

“Mr. Eames is a valued member of our inception team,” Cobb says gravely. 

Eames can feel Arthur’s dubiousness about that adjective. It makes Eames wants to snog him, but most things make him want to snog Arthur. 

“Cool,” says Wentz,  not sounding too enthusiastic about it. “Come on in.” 

The house is barely lived-in, with  a minimum of furniture tossed haphazardly in its cavernous spaces. There’s so little in it that their footsteps echo as Wentz leads them through into a room at the end of the house. This room is mostly glass looking over a spectacular view, and it actually has things in it: a desk, a sofa, chairs, even a rug. They look  hardly used but more used than the rest of the house. And the room’s wall is crowded with photographs. It’s striking, as the rest of the house is devoid of any personal touch, but this wall is  _ full _ . It’s like a concentrated burst of personality. 

Eames frowns in thought as he peruses the photographs, and there’s a bunch of  Wentz’s band, as Eames would have expected. Wentz has a taste for the most ridiculous of their photoshoots, framed versions of them dressed  up  as superheroes,  or sitting scattered among pinatas, or in bunny costumes.  And there are a few magazines covers, which are unsurprising. 

But there’s also a profusion of photographs of  Wentz with just one of the band members . In a bunch of them, they’re sitting side-by-side in a van, or in a greenroom,  or at a restaurant, posing for the camera, smiling sweetly sometimes, teasing each other  sometimes, Wentz snarling playfully,  the other bloke’s mouth open comically in a wide , mocking O. There are a lot of candids, too, ones where they’re not looking at the camera but at each other , or where only one of them  seems aware of the photographer. Eames slides his eyes over photograph after photograph of these two people  laughing at each other. 

Behind him, at  the desk, Wentz is saying,  “I mean, I don’t even know if it’s possible. I don’t understand how it all works. Feel free to tell me it’s impossible.” 

“Inception is tricky,” Cobb says, “but it’s not impossible. It can be done.” 

Arthur, ever the pragmatist, says, “It depends on what  the idea is that you want incepted.” 

“It’s…” 

Eames hears Wentz trail off, and glances over his shoulder at him.  He looks nervous. Terrified, frankly. And also desperate. Eames looks back at the photographs. 

Wentz  mumbles ,  “Christ, you’re going to think I’m fucking pathetic.” 

Arthur says drily, “Mr. Wentz, our threshold for that is extremely high ,” and Eames thinks of how many years Arthur patiently put up with Cobb and  smiles. 

“It’s just like…” Eames hears Wentz huff out a breath. “You hit this point where you just think…  _ I _ hit this point where I just think… I mean, I make terrible fucking decisions. Anyone would tell you that. Ask literally anyone. I shouldn’t be allowed to go through life unsupervised.” 

Arthur had said roughly the same thing about Wentz when he’d handed Eames his intel file, so at least Wentz is self-aware, Eames thinks. 

Wentz goes on, “And I had this, like, I had this  _ perfect _ thing, right? And I fucked it up because I fuck things up but I think if I could get another shot, I feel like I wouldn’t fuck it up again.  I feel like I’d be better this time. I feel like I’d know that… I’d  _ know _ .” 

There’s a moment of silence. Eames turns and leans back against the wall, crossing his arms and ankles, and  studies Wentz. He looks thoroughly miserable and also stubborn as hell, like he’s determined to get through this, no matter what. 

Arthur says carefully, “You know dreamshare doesn’t offer time travel…” 

Wentz scowls. “I know that.  But you can plan t an idea in someone’s mind, right? That’s what I need. I need to make someone think something they’re never going to think without a little bit of help.” 

“Okay,” Arthur says. “And what’s that?” 

Eames watches Wentz closely, the set of his jaw as he says this, the way his fingers twist nervously and then he forces them steady and still onto the desk.  Eames knows what he’s going to say before he says it, glances sideways at all those photographs on the wall. 

“I need to make someone love me. I need to make Patrick love me.  Not just, like, love me, not just like, ‘oh, yeah, I hope Pete does okay with the rest of his life, I hope he doesn’t die in a plane crash or anything.’ I don’t want that kind of love.  I want  _ magnificent _ love. I want to be loved like…like…so deeply that he  never wants to let me go ever again. I want him to be in love with every terrible thing about me, so that none of it will matter. That’s what I want.” 

There’s another  moment of silence, longer this time.  Eames turns back to the wall, scans through the photographs again. 

Arthur begins hesitantly, “ I’m not sure that  it’s a good idea—”

“Is this Patrick?” Eames asks suddenly, pointing  to the person in all the photos, this strawberry-blonde kid with the sideburns and the hats. 

Everyone looks over at Eames. 

Wentz says hoarsely, “Yeah, that’s Patrick.” 

Eames looks from  photo to photo, his eyes bouncing over them, Patrick smiling at Pete, smiling at Pete, laughing with Pete, smiling at Pete, looking at Pete, leaned close to Pete, turned  toward Pete, there are dozens of photographs  like that  on this wall. 

Arthur  is saying , “Inception isn’t a magic wand. We can’t make someone wake up magically in love with you. All we can do is plant the kernel of an idea that may or may not—”

Eames looks at a photograph of Pete snuggled close to Patrick, sound asleep, head on Patrick’s shoulder. Patrick is looking at the camera,  his mouth tipped in a rueful smile, his posture  careful so as not to disturb Pete. Eames interrupts Arthur. “We can do it,” he says. 


	3. Chapter 3

It’s not like Pete arrived at this decision lightly. It’s not like he heard about inception and thought,  _ Hey, I know _ _ , _ _ I’ll fuck with Patrick’s brain _ . 

No. What happened was P e te spent all these endless nights without Patrick, so many, they piled up, they weighed him down, all these sleepless nights he stared out at the city beyond the window, where people were living and loving and laughing and fucking and all of them weren’t him. Pete spent years of his life with Patrick never farther away than the next room, usually in the next bed, often right beside him, heart beating in his ear, breath ruffling his hair. When insomnia kicked Pete’s ass, Patrick sang him to sleep. On the rare nights they weren’t near each other, Pete would call, and Patrick would answer, and Patrick would sing. 

Pete laid awake with his phone on his chest, staring up at the ceiling, more nights than he could count. Pete scrolled to Patrick in his contacts –  _ Rick Ta Life _ , it still read, like they were still friends who teased each other, instead of people who hadn’t spoken to each other in months. 

Pete contemplated the rest of his life in this  _ silence _ , this  _ nothingness _ , and he couldn’t fucking do it. He couldn’t do it.

On the day Pete decides that he’s not above tricking his best friend into loving him, he sprawls uselessly on the sofa after showing the dream criminals out of his house and stares up at the blank ceiling and thinks of what a selfish, terrible asshole he is. Patrick was totally right to leave, and  Pete ’s proving it right now, but still, he can’t stop, because the alternative is  _ this _ , for the rest of his life, and he can’t live like this.  But he also can’t bring himself to  _ not _ live without seeing Patrick at least once more, he can’t have the last time he saw Patrick be  _ the last time he saw Patrick _ , Patrick walking out the door, cold and brittle, snarling over his shoulder, “Emo King Pete Wentz, have a nice life.” 

Pete sobs involuntarily and scrubs his hands over his face and thinks that he should call Patrick, because maybe Patrick would pick up and he would sound warm and fond the way he used to and he would say,  _ Wentz, you idiot, what have you been up to, why didn’t you call me sooner? _

Or maybe he would see  Pete’s name and hit  _ ignore _ . 

Pete drags himself up off the couch and up to his bedroom. Not that he’s going to sleep but he likes to go through the motions. He likes to pretend. He’s super fucking good at pretending. 

Pete puts Truant Wave on because he’s stupid like that and he  crawls into bed and listens to Patrick sing to him.  _ Every word’s a new regret if you say it right _ , sings Patrick. 

_ Fucking tell me about it _ , thinks Pete. He’s going to make it up to Patrick. He’s going to repent for this subterfuge of his. He’s going to be the best fucking boyfriend in the history of time. He’s going to love Patrick so well this time around, he’s going to love him  _ perfectly _ , he’ll never be difficult or whiney or needle Patrick into shouting matches just to have something interesting happening. He’s going to be so good,  _ so _ good. He’s going to make Patrick so happy,  _ so _ happy.  _ I promise _ , he thinks hard at the voice of Patrick trapped in vinyl.  _ I’m going to make everything up to you _ . 

_ It’s just love, selfish love _ , Patrick’s voice sings to him.  _ It’s just love, selfish love _ . 

Pete closes his eyes and actually sleeps. 

***

Arthur is in a towering temper. Eames enjoys him like this,  fury lights him up, it’s why he’s so much fun to poke and taunt. 

They spend the whole drive back to Cobb’s house with Arthur seething, it fills the car with tension, it ’ s frankly  _ delightful _ , Eames  i s reveling in it. Arthur ruf fled is his favorite thing, and he’d love to ruffle him up in a  _ good _ way, a  _ sexy _ way, but Arthur’s  got that stick up his arse that forbids him from having fun so Eames has to rely on this kind of ruffling. 

When they get to Cobb’s house, Cobb insists that they come inside to talk about the job. 

“No, no,” Arthur bites out. “I think Eames and I should go talk about it alone.” 

Cobb pouts. “It’s my job, though, Arthur. He came to  _ me _ . I’m going to be running this job, I should be part of this discussion.” 

“No,  _ no _ ,” denies Arthur  again  through gritted teeth. “There’s nothing to discuss, because we’re not doing this job.” 

“Come inside and say hi to Philippa and James,” says Cobb genially, as if Arthur hasn’t spoken. 

Eames tries not to laugh. 

Arthur snaps at him, “Stop laughing. It’s not funny.” 

Eames protests, “I’m not laughing! Not on the  _ outside _ anyway.” 

Arthur storms into the house , Eames sauntering behind him and admiring the cut of his trousers . “It’s not funny, Eames ,” Arthur is fuming. “ This isn’t a  _ joke _ . You can’t fuck with someone’s fucking emotions like this, you can’t shove them into fucking  _ falling in love _ against their fucking will. Jesus Christ, have some fucking standards. ” 

James and Philippa blink at Arthur  evenly . 

Cobb says, “And what do we say about the words Uncle Arthur uses?” 

“Only Uncle Arthur is allowed to use them,”  Philippa  recites obediently. 

“Who’s falling in love?” James asks. “Is it like a movie?” 

“It’s like the opposite of a movie,” Arthur tells him. 

“Let’s not fight in front of the children, muffin,” says Eames. 

“I’ll get the baby-sitter to bring them to get ice cream,” Cobb says vaguely, herding them away. 

Arthur rounds on Eames. “ _ Eames _ —”

“Arthur, it’s a job,” Eames says , because he never can resist poking Arthur a little bit more . “All of a sudden you’ve got scruples?” 

“Fuck you,” says Arthur, “I’ve always had scruples.” 

Which Eames  knows is true . “ Yes. You—”

Arthur is too impatient to let him agree with him, interrupting him immediately.  “This is a thing I’m not doing. We’re not fucking up someone’s life this way. We’re not changing its entire path like this.” 

“That’s what inception does ,” Eames points out. “ That’s what we did to Fischer—”

“We, like,  _ fixed _ Fischer. We made his life better. You said it yourself, he should have paid us, we made things so much better.” 

“What makes you think it wouldn’t make Patrick’s life better to be in love with Pete?” Eames asks mildly. 

“Because you should get to  _ choose _ ,” Arthur says earnestly. “You should get to choose who you love, Eames. Like…that’s  _ important _ . You want to… You want to love who you want to love, you want that one thing in your life to be real, because the rest of the world is full of fucking confusion, but you should get to have one thing that you trust, and that’s that you love who you love and it wasn’t because you got slipped some Somnacin fucking love potion.” 

Eames regards Arthur, furious and pretty, and lets the smile out to play around his lips. “Why, darling, this is  such a romantic notion , who knew you had this lurking inside of you?”

Arthur glares at him and says, “You and Cobb can play around manipulating this guy into falling in love with a person he doesn’t love, but I’m not doing it.” 

“Arthur, Arthur, Arthur.” Eames shakes his head in dramatic disappointment. “Do you think so little of me? Do you think I have so little respect for soulmates and fairy tales and happily ever after?” 

Arthur looks at him in suspicious silence for a moment, before answering, “Yes. Yes, I do.” 

Eames laughs. “ Poppet , Patrick’s already in love with him.” 

“What?” says Arthur. 

“He’s already in love with him. This is like taking candy from a baby. We’ll take his money and fix his relationship, no dream-crime required.” 

“Oh, because we’re such good therapists?” Arthur drawls sarcastically. 

“Says the person who held Cobb together during his nervous breakdown exile across the planet,” Eames points out. 

Arthur flushes, the tips of his ears going pink, and says, “Okay, like…” and then clearly decides to give up denying that. “What makes you think this Patrick guy loves Wentz?” 

“Because I was looking at the pictures on his wall while you were wasting time talking to him.”

Arthur frowns skeptically . “You looked at some pictures?” 

“You pulled the wrong information for Wentz’s file. You should have pulled us stuff on this Patrick fellow.” 

“Well, I didn’t know he was going to ask for a  _ boyfriend _ , did I?” asks Arthur sourly. 

Eames smiles. “Let’s just help them get together and do a good deed. For our fee, of course.” 

“We’re not matchmakers,” Arthur says. 

Eames shrugs. “Maybe we should  be .” 

Arthur lifts his eyebrows. “Us? You think  _ we _ should be matchmakers? Because of our great track record with relationships?” 

“I bet we could pull it off,” Eames wheedles. “Come along, kitten, you can pull anything off, can’t you?” 

Flattery often works on Arthur, Eames knows, when it’s combined with the proper tone of cajoling and the proper puppy-dog eyes from him . 

Arthur rolls his eyes and huffs, “This is  _ ridiculous _ .” 

“It would be a nice easy one, wouldn’t it? A nice break from chemists and people’s projections shooting at us? Like a holiday, only one we’re being paid for. And we make two people happy.” 

Arthur considers him dubiously. 

“You don’t trust me,” Eames remarks, and presses a hand dramatically to his chest. “That wounds me, Arthur.” 

“You looked at some photographs. I’m not playing matchmaker with you until I do actual research.” 

“Fair enough,” Eames agrees. 

Cobb joins them and says, “Okay, we can talk about this now.” 

Eames says simply, “Nothing to talk about, Ar thur and  I are going to go meet  the love of Pete Wentz’s life.” 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've spent the last few days coming down with a cold while simultaneously trying to meet a deadline, and oh, Thanksgiving happened or something, so i'm behind on responding to comments, even though I'm not behind on reading them, and they have been a joy in the middle of everything else. I'm going to go collapse into bed now but I didn't want to leave you without a little bit of Patrick's POV on this whole mess. So here's some Patrick Stump.

Patrick is missing his band. 

When there’s a band, and you have a constant schedule of press to do, it’s not all on  _ you _ . When there’s a band with Pete Wentz, it’s  _ especially _ not on you. Right now, everything’s on Patrick, and Patrick is exhausted, and he wants to crawl into bed and sleep, and instead he’s trying to drink enough coffee to make himself charming for these reporters who want to do a feature story on him, apparently. 

Patrick never thinks he’s especially charming, so that would be quite a large amount of coffee. 

“Patrick?” somebody calls from outside the greenroom. 

Patrick should  really  know these people ’s names by this point in the tour. It’s not that he’s being rude about it, he’s trying really hard to remember everyone, it’s just that he’s  _ tired _ , in a way he can’t remember being tired in a while. He tries to remember feeling this way during Fall Out Boy tours; he remembers being tired, of course, but it was never bone-deep like this. 

He hates to admit how much  Pete made everything better. Not that he doesn’t  _ know _ , he just hates to  _ admit _ it. 

“Patrick, the reporters are he—”

“Yeah, yeah, coming!” he calls back. “I’m coming.” He takes a deep breath and scrubs his hands over his face and tells himself to just suck it up and  _ do _ this already. He’s been living without Pete fucking Wentz for a while now, sooner or later his body’s going to get over this dragging withdrawal and stop fucking missing him every minute. 

There are two reporters waiting for him, one dressed in a suit much sharper than Patrick’s ever seen any reporter wear. Patrick’s getting better at suits, since he spends a lot of time in them these days, and that one is a little staid but very well-cut. The other guy, slouching deep in his chair and fidgeting with a pen in his hand, is dressed much more casually but has a striking pair of lips. Patrick notices these things because he can’t tell you how many times he’s been told  _ he _ has a striking pair of lips. 

Patrick calls upon the reserves of caffeine in his system to send a smile to the reporters as he takes his seat. “Hello,” he says pleasantly. “Sorry to keep you waiting.” 

“Mr. Stump,” says the guy in the suit.

Patrick lifts his eyebrows, because most reporters just jump straight to “Patrick.” He wonders vaguely if this is the New York Times. The Times was obsessed with calling him Mr. Stump. He probably should have paid greater attention to who he was about to talk to.

“Patrick,” says the other guy, and smiles at him, swaggering and cocky.

It sets Patrick on wary edge. He has no idea what’s going on anymore.

“Hi,” he says slowly. He glances back at the guy in the suit, who’s studying him closely, like he’s trying to figure something out. He’s got brown eyes, but they’re a different brown than Pete’s.

Patrick really wishes he’d stop thinking about Pete, and it makes him cranky. “Can I help you with something?” he snaps. “I thought this was an interview.”

The man in the suit lifts a mild eyebrow at him. Patrick would like to punch his stupid face. He’s maybe a little on-edge. He’s just tired.

The other guy says, and now Patrick can fully hear his British accent, “Yes, yes, an interview. Sorry. Please excuse my associate, he’s not much of a people person.”

Patrick mulls that over, points out flatly, “He’s a reporter.”

“Yes, I speak with him often about the absurdity of his career choice,” says the British guy.

Suit Guy rolls his eyes.

The British guy says, “What we want to talk to you about is Pete Wentz.”

Patrick stiffens. He says carefully, “Why?”

“Why not?” asks the British guy, with a casual shrug.

“Because if you want to talk about Pete Wentz, you could probably talk to Pete Wentz. I’m promoting my own album. My solo album.” Neither one of these men looks the least bit interested in this. “Soul Punk?” Patrick prompts them.

“ Pete was talking about you,” the British guy says evenly, eyes never leaving Patrick’s face.

Suit Guy keeps staring at him, too. It’s unnerving.

“Pete does a lot of talking,” Patrick says. “Pete never shuts up.”

“Hmm,” says the British guy noncommittally, and smiles at him.

Patrick knows it’s a fucking trap but he can’t help it. He could Google after this interview’s over, but he needs to know now. Patrick always pretended to be the one of them not prone to addiction, but he is terribly, terribly, irreversibly addicted to Pete Wentz, and he knows it. He nearly overdosed on Pete Wentz, and even now he would still do it again.

He swallows and takes the bait. “What did Pete say about me?”

The British guy smiles more. “Oh, good things. He likes the album.”

Patrick knows this already, because he knows Pete tweeted about that. Patrick stared at that tweet for a long time. He was tagged on it, and he could have replied, he could have said thanks, but that seemed too trite for the relationship they’d had, and too much for the relationship they currently have. Patrick wants to know how someone can be simultaneously everything to you and nothing to you.

Patrick says, “Well. Pete’s probably a little biased.”

The British guy laughs. “Oh, he’s a lot biased.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” asks Patrick. Why are these people so fucking annoying? He wishes he could remember what outlet they’re from, so he could figure out if he can insult them by just leaving, or if they’re too big a deal to insult.

“It doesn’t really matter what he thinks,” Suit Guy says lightly. “Pete Wentz is terrible at music.”

Patrick narrows his eyes at him. “No, he’s not. He’s fantastic at music. I wish people would stop with this ‘Pete Wentz is terrible at music’ thing. He’s the reason we ever went anywhere as a band.”

“That was all you,” says Suit Guy evenly, holding his gaze.

“No, that was all him,” Patrick retorts.

“That’s not what he says,” British Guy interjects.

“Because he’s a fucking idiot and you can’t trust him. He always thinks I was magic or fucking whatever because he lives in a fantasy world. Look, can we just do the interview and stop talking about Pete, that was years ago.”

“He says hi,” says British Guy, so casually, like that’s not momentous.

Patrick’s metaphorical world crashes down all around him, his careful palace of popsicle sticks as a fortress against Pete Wentz, swept aside by this one crucial moment where maybe, just maybe, Pete reached out and tapped his way through. “He…” Patrick says intelligently. “What? He says hi?”

“Yeah,” says British Guy.

But Patrick doesn’t understand. “He…said that? He said, ‘Tell Patrick I say hi’? That’s what he said?”

“That’s what he said,” responds British Guy simply.

Patrick still doesn’t understand. He stares at this reporter and tries to understand. “Why?” he says finally.

“Why wouldn’t he?” replies British Guy.

Why wouldn’t he? Of course. These people don’t know how long it’s been since Pete Wentz said hi to him. And these people don’t know how much Patrick cares about that.

Sometimes, on stage, Patrick has to remind himself to breathe. He does that here and now, takes a very conscious breath in and lets it out. Then he says, “Okay. Cool. Tell him I said hi back,” and hopes he pulled off not giving a fuck, this is all totally normal.

“I will definitely do that,” says British Guy, and smiles widely.

Patrick has been off-balance this  whole  time and now apparently Pete Wentz said hi to him and he just wants to… He wanted to sleep but now he wants to just breathe somewhere.

British Guy says, “Well. This was a good talk. Thank you,” and stands up.

So does Suit Guy.

Patrick gapes at them. “Hang on, I thought you wanted an interview.”

“We do,” British Guy says. “Definitely. We’ll be in touch.”

They both start walking away.

“Be in touch?” Patrick echoes. “Let’s just do the interview now!” he calls after them. They don’t turn back to him. “What the actual fuck,” Patrick says faintly.

Someone walks into the room to grab a bottle of water.

Patrick says, “I’m awake, right? This isn’t a dream, is it?”

The woman looks at him funny and leaves the room again.

Patrick, frankly, doesn’t know what to think. 


	5. Chapter 5

Arthur fucking hates it when Eames is right.

The worst thing about it is when Eames doesn’t even _say_ anything. He just sits in the car next to Arthur smug in his stupid smugness, silent and smugly _smug_.

“Fine,” Arthur clips out finally.

“Fine?” echoes Eames innocently, as if he has no idea what Arthur could possibly be talking about, as if they might be discussing the weather.

“Fine, fine, you were right, get it out of your system.”

“Darling, there is nothing to get out of my system, my system is _perfect_ , my system is wonderful, I have an extremely happy system.” Eames pauses. “Also Patrick Stump is in love with Pete Wentz.”

Arthur rolls his eyes. “Yes, yes, you’re a genius.”

“I am merely attuned to human interaction, pet,” Eames croons smugly. “I know what love looks like in a person’s eyes. I know the way they lean close, adoring, wanting to be in the glorious penumbra of the object of their affection.”

Arthur slides him an arch look. “Do you?” he says drily.

“You’re thinking you never look at me that way,” says Eames, still sounding smug, “and you’d be wrong.”

The car swerves sharply to the left and Arthur corrects it and pretends that never happened.

Eames says, “But we’ll talk about that later. Everyone knows that a certain type of person only betrays their love when they think the other person’s not looking. This is, of course, why Wentz is apparently utterly clueless about Stump’s devotion. Stump must cover it up.”

“Or Wentz is an idiot,” Arthur retorts, “because you figured it out in two seconds flat.”

“You’re so unkind,” Eames tuts at him. “Love is confusing, and often hardest to see from inside of yourself.”

“Why are you speaking entirely like you’re talking me through a beginners’ flow yoga class?” Arthur asks sourly.

Eames laughs. “Got a lot of experience with those, love?”

“So what’s the plan for this job?” Arthur asks, because he would be happy to get off the topic of…well, Arthur doesn’t know, because this entire job is about love, and he wishes really desperately it weren’t. But just a semi-professional conversation once in a while would make Arthur happy at this point.

“We’re going to tell Wentz we did it,” Eames says simply.

“We did it?”

“Performed inception. Got into Stump’s head. Planted the seed that he loves him.”

“We didn’t,” Arthur points out.

“Yes, tulip,” Eames says patiently. “It’s what’s called a ‘lie.’ Commonly undertaken when—”

Arthur interrupts him, the opposite of patiently. “But why would Wentz believe us? If nothing changes about the way Stump treats him, is the only point that now Wentz will see what he wants to see?”

“Well, I mean, that might work, to be honest. Make Wentz read every motion Stump makes as a sign of love and affection. But what I’m thinking is we have to tell Stump.”

“Tell Stump he’s in love with Wentz?”

“Tell Stump Wentz is in love with him.”

Arthur considers this for a moment. Then he says, “It’s that easy?”

“It should be. They’re making things more difficult than they need to be.” Eames is silent for a beat. “Another thing I’m well acquainted with.”

Arthur flickers his eyes over to Eames, who’s looking out at the road, inscrutable, before shifting back to study the road as well. He says, “Alright. Who’s telling Stump?”

“Well, obviously it should be you, petal, you hit it off with him so beautifully, and we all know you really love delivering proclamations of love—”

Arthur huffs a sigh and says, “Fine. Yes. You tell him.”

There’s a moment of quiet in the car. Arthur tries to savor it.

Eames ends it. “Should we tell Cobb what we’re up to?”

“Absolutely not,” says Arthur.

“Totally agreed,” replies Eames.

***

The British guy shows up again on an off-day, when Patrick is taking a break from being Patrick Stump, which means he’s lost his dramatic suit and his bleached hair is undone and he’s wearing glasses and a cardigan and he knows he looks a little dowdy because he always does when he’s not trying really hard to overcome his natural dullness.

That’s when the British guy shows up. In his driveway. Just as Patrick steps outside to take the dog for a walk.

“Hello,” he says pleasantly.

“Oh, wow,” Patrick replies, which is not at all what his brain is screaming, because his brain is screaming, _Oh, fuck, this guy is a crazy stalker and you’re about to die_.

The British guy says, “Is that your dog? He’s sweet, what’s his name?”

“She,” says Patrick, “and Penny.”

The British guy crouches down and Penny leaps all over him, licking his hand happily, and Patrick thinks what a traitor she is, she’ll probably tuck herself into this guy’s pocket after he murders Patrick.

“Hello, Penny,” the British guy croons. “Aren’t you a sweetheart?” He straightens and puts his hands in his pockets. “Can’t really have a dog in my line of work. I’d like one, though.”

“Your line of work,” Patrick says. “Is that reporting or serial killing?”

The British guy laughs. “Funny. I see why he loves you. You want to love someone with a bit of gallows humor, right?”

“Sure,” says Patrick affably. “What the fuck is going on right now?”

“I’m Eames,” says the British guy. “I feel like we got off to an odd start.”

“Because you’re a fucking odd guy,” Patrick retorts.

The British guy – Eames – smiles hugely. “No, seriously, I’m going to tell Wentz I totally get it.”

The _Wentz_ freezes Patrick into place. That’s the second time this Eames guy has acted like he knows Pete. “Okay,” Patrick says, and leans down to gather Penny up in his arms. “I’ve kind of had enough of this. If Pete is trying to use you to deliver cryptic messages to me, tell him to grow a pair and give me a fucking call, I’m sick of this passive-aggressive social media bullshit—”

“You’re the one who left, aren’t you?” Eames interrupts calmly.

Patrick snaps, “Is that the story he tells? Poor, wronged Pete Wentz. He’s always the one who gets left, never the one who does the leaving.”

“Yeah, that’s a lot to unpack,” muses Eames. “You two might be more of a tangle than you need to be. Hmm.”

“No, seriously, what the _fuck_ ,” says Patrick.

“Okay, Patrick, I’m about to change your life. Are you ready?”

Patrick feels himself go cold. He clutches his fingers into Penny’s fur and thinks, _This is it, you’re going to die now_. He squeezes his eyes shut, because he never pretended not to be a fucking coward.

Eames says, “Why are your eyes closed?”

“No reason,” Patrick mumbles, wishing he’d just get on with it.

“Okay,” Eames says slowly. “Here’s a message from Pete Wentz, not cryptic at all: He loves you.”

Patrick rocks backward like a gunshot went off. He sucks in a breath and he opens his eyes and he says, “…What?”

“And I don’t mean it in a casual way. I mean he’s in love with you. I mean you’re the love of his life. I mean he misses you like crazy and he’d do anything to get you back. I mean that he’s sorry and he’s desperate and he doesn’t think he could ever deserve your love in return, that he’d ever be able to win it without tricking you into it. He thinks that you could never love Pete Wentz.”

Patrick can’t breathe. He hasn’t been killed and yet he still might die. He manages to choke out, “He… What?”

Eames looks unperturbed by Patrick’s impending death. He says, “He’s wrong, though. You know that. You love him _hopelessly_. You wish you didn’t. I get that. Anyone can see that you wish you didn’t. But it’s no good, is it? _You_ can think poorly of him but let anyone else think an unkind thought and you’re ready to punch them. Do you wish to deny it?”

Patrick can’t deny anything. He croaks, “It doesn’t—”

“This is a stupid thing the two of you are doing. He thinks you don’t love him at all. You should tell him.”

“I…” Patrick’s fingers clench convulsively around Penny’s fur. “What would that accomplish?”

“It would let him love you back. It would let him _love_ you back, the way he wants to, the way he thinks he doesn’t have a right to.”

Patrick closes his eyes, because ten minutes ago he was taking his dog for a walk and never seeing Pete Wentz ever again. “His love would swallow me whole,” Patrick whispers.

“And it hasn’t already?” asks Eames gently.

Patrick takes a deep shuddering breath.

“You know how he would love, if you let him. You should let him. You don’t think it would be better than feeling the way you’re feeling now? Than living this half-life you’re living now?”

Patrick breathes and breathes.

Eames says, “Text him. What do you have to lose? Do you think you could possibly regret anything more than you regret the way you’ve left it so far?”

Patrick keeps breathing, and when he opens his eyes, Eames is gone.


	6. Chapter 6

“Alright,” Eames says confidently to Arthur as he strides into his flat. “I’ve done it.”

Arthur is in the middle of watering his plants. Arthur insists on having plants, even though he’s almost never home and is constantly paying someone to water them for him. Eames chooses to find this Arthurian quirk endearing. Eames chooses to find most Arthurian quirks endearing.

Arthur looks at his watch and says, “You’ve been gone an hour.”

“Yeah, traffic was a nightmare,” Eames says, and flings himself onto Arthur’s couch.

“You’re in _L.A._ ,” Arthur points out. “How’d you even get to Stump’s house and back in an hour?”

Eames shrugs.

Arthur knits his eyebrows. “You couldn’t have been there more than five minutes.”

“He was taking his dog for a walk,” Eames explains. “I met him just as he was coming outside. Perfect timing.”

“And you talked to him for _five minutes_?”

“Probably. Thereabouts. Honestly, he’s kind of a combative conversationalist. He’s hilarious. He made Wentz go up in my esteem, I approve of his choice here.”

“In _five minutes_ , you fixed everything?”

“Yup,” says Eames blithely, stretching out, crossing his ankles, stacking his hands behind his head, making himself at home.

Arthur comes over to look down at him, flatly unimpressed as ever.

“You know,” Eames says, “I’m no Pete Wentz.”

“That’s a good thing?” offers Arthur.

“What I mean is: You can’t fool me. That poor sod is utterly blind to the truth, but I? I see you clearly, cupcake.”

“I hope so,” Arthur deadpans, “I’m standing literally right next to you.”

Eames chuckles and closes his eyes. “Go and tell Wentz the love of his life is about to ring him and give him a second chance, and tell him from me that he better not bloody waste it. In the meantime, I’m going to stay here and steal a non-Somnacin nap on your lovely sofa.”

“You’d better be right about this. I’ll look like an idiot if you’ve fucked this up, he’ll know right away we didn’t incept Stump.”

“You do your job, darling, the way I did mine, and we’ll be fine. When’s the last time I cocked anything up for you?”

Arthur is silent, and Eames knows it’s because Eames is never the one who causes Arthur the issues. Eames is the one who helps Arthur solve all of them. That’s why he’s allowed to come in and commandeer Arthur’s sofa like this.

Arthur says, “I’ll be back in _less_ than an hour,” because Arthur has a competitive streak.

Eames smiles and murmurs, “Looking forward to it.”

***

If you’d asked Pete to estimate, he would have guessed that it would take at least a couple of weeks before he’d hear from the dream criminals again. Instead, the doorbell rings and he’s required to pause the Lifetime movie he’s watching to go see who it is (he doesn’t want to miss the moment when the best friend realizes the husband is holding the wife hostage in the basement with all the homemade pottery). He almost doesn’t answer the door because no one ever visits, but, fuck it, this is the most exciting thing to happen in several days, so he trails through his empty house to the front door to see who’s stopped by.

It’s Mr. Arthur, the severe dream criminal.

Pete’s stomach sinks, because, well, he definitely would have preferred the other dream criminal who had been a lot more supportive. Mr. Arthur had been…a real Debbie Downer.

There was a time in his life when Pete was really good at putting on a game face. Pete Wentz lived with a game face on for so long he forgot what his actual face even looked like. Pete’s done with all of that now. Pete just _is_ these days, whatever he is. Exhausted, generally.

So Pete doesn’t try to look happy to see Mr. Arthur. He swings the door open and says, “Yo.” Because this can’t possibly be good news. Nobody ever has good news for him.

Mr. Arthur gives him a tight, tiny flicker of a smile, so infinitesimal Pete’s not sure it counts, and says, “Mr. Wentz. I have good news.”

Pete lifts his eyebrows dubiously. “Yeah, right.”

“May I come in?” asks Mr. Arthur, unperturbed, and then steps past him into the house.

Mr. Arthur is dressed in a sharp, well-fitted suit. His shirt has been _ironed_. Pete thinks maybe his _tie_ has been ironed. He’s wearing a tie. Pete has the dust of Cheetos past on his sweatpants. Oh, well.

Mr. Arthur says simply, “It’s done.”

Pete is so busy wondering if he even owns a pair of shoes capable of being shined that he can’t parse what this means. “What’s done?”

Mr. Arthur is super-unimpressed with him, but that’s cool, because everyone on the planet is unimpressed with Pete Wentz. “The inception,” Mr. Arthur explains coolly.

“The inception?” Pete frowns in surprise. “Hang on, you already accomplished the inception?”

“Indeed,” says Mr. Arthur.

“So…” Pete mulls this over. “Patrick’s in love with me?” _Just like that?_ he thinks. He knows he requested this, he knows he’s paying for it, and he still can’t comprehend that it might actually be _true_.

“Well,” says Mr. Arthur, “inception is merely a suggestion, as you know. We’ve planted the idea in Mr. Stump’s mind, that he might be in love with you, and now it’s really up to him if he chooses to let that idea grow. Up to him and…you, of course.” Mr. Arthur’s eyes skim down Pete’s body, and Pete can hear what he’s thinking very easily: _Probably you should, like, change your clothes to something somewhat clean_ , is what Mr. Arthur’s thinking. Only he would never use the word _like_.

But Pete needs to get himself to believe that Patrick might be re-entering his life before he can actually start to act like Patrick is re-entering his life. He says, “You… I mean… That was…very fast. I thought I’d have time to, like…” Write a poem, Pete thinks. He vaguely thought he might write Patrick a love poem. All the words Pete’s given to Patrick, and he’s never given him just straightforward _adoration_ , not really, whenever he did it was always surrounded by a million other things. _Multiply me times what you adore most_ , thinks Pete, and Patrick pulled lyrics from all around that line, but never _that_ line.

“Take a shower,” Mr. Arthur says mildly, like Pete’s not visibly trembling with panic in front of him. “You’ll feel better. Before you do that, though, you should transfer the rest of the money to my account.”

“Right,” Pete agrees faintly.

“Good luck, Mr. Wentz,” Mr. Arthur says, and steps out the front door.

Pete fucking _panics_ , staring at the closed front door, pressing his fingers against his lips. He should have thought this through. He should have _fucking thought this through_. What’s he going to do with a Patrick who could be in love with him? He’s going to fuck it all up all over again, that’s what he’s going to do. Fuck, fuck, _fuck_ , he is the biggest fucking idiot in the entire universe, what the fuck is _wrong_ with him.

His phone vibrates in his hand, and he’s so discombobulated that he answers it without looking at it. “Hello,” he croaks out.

There’s a moment of silence, and then Patrick’s voice says, “Pete?”

_Patrick’s voice_. Pete tells himself to breathe, he just has to breathe, he has to _fucking breathe_. He tells himself to say something, he just has to say something, he has to _fucking say something_.

“Hello?” Patrick says uncertainly.

“I’m here,” Pete gasps, suddenly remembering how to breathe and how to speak all at the same time. “I’m here, sorry, I’m here. Patrick. _Patrick_. Hi. Um. Hi.” He stops for breath, he’s basically panting, god knows what Patrick’s going to think about this.

Patrick seems to think nothing about it, because Patrick is used to him. Patrick is, above all else, used to Pete Wentz, disaster human. Of course, that also eventually made him sick unto leaving of Pete Wentz, disaster human, but Pete’s kind of forgotten that he can be a complete… _himself_ , he can be completely himself with Patrick, and Patrick mostly barely registers that as unusual. So Patrick just says, “Hi.” And then, “It’s… I…”

Pete doesn’t say anything, waiting with bated breath for Patrick to finish a sentence.

“So,” Patrick says suddenly, in a completely different tone of voice. “The thing is. Like. I haven’t seen _The Goonies_ in _forever_. And I was just thinking, like, probably neither have you.”

Pete watched _The Goonies_ last week. Pete says breathlessly, “Forever and ever, I’m really desperate to see it again, do you want to come over?”

Pete can hear the smile in Patrick’s voice when he says, “I do.” Pete can _hear_ the _smile_. Because Pete knows Patrick – he _knows Patrick_ – and suddenly this seems doable, he knows what to do with a second chance with Patrick, he won’t fuck this up.

Pete says, “I’ll order pizza,” and he does, and then he runs upstairs to shower.


	7. Chapter 7

When Arthur gets back, Eames is snoring on his couch.

He shrugs and sets about making dinner. Pasta carbonara. One of the great joys of taking a job in the place where he has a house is that he gets to actually cook. Well, when it’s a fake job like this and they barely have to do anything. He has fresh ingredients in his fridge, and he slices up pancetta happily, grates up some cheese.

When Eames stumbles into the kitchen, he looks bleary-eyed and foggy. “Did you cook?” he asks, dropping into a chair at the table.

“Yes,” says Arthur, stirring his pasta. “But not for you.”

He expects Eames to rejoin in kind, something about being hurt that Arthur’s going to leave him to starve to death. When he’s silent, Arthur glances over at him curiously.

He’s leaning forward with his head in his hands, sniffling.

Arthur’s suddenly worried he’s crying. “What’s wrong with you?” he asks in alarm.

“Just fighting off a cold,” Eames says. “It’s been all, you know, scratchy throat and what-not. Always worse when you just wake up.” Eames sniffles again.

Arthur gapes at him. “You’re sick?”

“It happens,” Eames responds wryly.

“I didn’t notice you were sick!”

“I’m not that sick, Arthur. I had a sore throat. Didn’t stop me from incepting Mr. Stump. Speaking of. How was your visit to Wentz?”

The timer Arthur set for the pasta goes off. Arthur tests it, distracted, and then says, as he tosses it into the strainer, “I think okay. He’s never going to get Stump to fall for him if he doesn’t shower, though.”

Arthur can feel Eames’s eyes on him as he tosses the pasta in the pan of pancetta. Eames says, “You’re not understanding, love. Stump fell for him years ago. Whether he showers now isn’t going to matter.”

“No? So once you fall for someone, you put up with them not showering?” Arthur adds his egg and Parmesan mixture to the pasta.

“Fuck, darling, you put up with a lot, trust me,” says Eames, punctuating the statement with another sniffle.

Arthur never quite knows what to do with those comments. He collects them, but then, like with any collection, he’s undecided what he’s _doing_ with it. He says instead, “I have made you pasta carbonara,” and puts the bowl of it on the table.

Eames says, “I thought that wasn’t for me.”

“You’re sick and pathetic-looking, I changed my mind.”

“Do I look pathetic?” asks Eames, and bats his eyelashes.

“No, now you look demented,” Arthur says, even though he does look pathetic, all watery eyes and red nose.

Eames laughs. “I’m telling you, it’s just because I just woke up. You still wouldn’t notice my illness if I hadn’t fallen asleep on your sofa. Also, it’s time for my next dose of medicine.” Eames helps himself to some pasta. A lot of pasta.

Arthur remarks, “Feed a cold, starve a fever.”

“Exactly, daffodil,” Eames says, humming happily. “So what are we up to next?”

“We?” echoes Arthur drily.

“Of course ‘we.’ We’re the ones who pulled this job off, after all. We could open up a whole matchmaking service.”

“I know you’re obsessed with this idea, but maybe we should see if our first try is successful. I’m still half-convinced he’s going to figure out we took his money and did nothing.”

“We did a lot!” Eames protests indignantly.

“You talked to Stump for five minutes.”

Eames lifts one shoulder in a shrug and says, “That’s all it took. I can’t help it if they were that easy a nut to crack. Maybe we need a more complicated nut.” Eames tries to give him a meaningful look and ruins it by sneezing. Seven times. Arthur counts.

“You’re really sick,” Arthur says, and what he says next should be, _Get out of my house, you’re going to make me sick and I don’t want to catch a cold_. What he actually says is, “You should go back to bed.”

Eames gives the meaningful look thing another try.

Arthur rolls his eyes and says, “I have a spare bedroom, Mr. Eames.”

Eames smiles at him. 

***

Patrick doesn’t let himself think as he’s driving to Pete’s. He puts on _Take This to Your Grave_ and he blasts it. This is not a thing he ordinarily does but he suddenly really wants to remember what it was like to be that kid, to be falling more in love every day, to be so young and so excited for the future, to find it impossible to imagine that Pete meant all of it and wasn’t going to disappear, that Patrick could give him all of his music and Pete would give him all of his words.

He’d forgotten the miracle of that, had started to find it exhausting, how much Pete meant, and how heavily his words weighed on Patrick. But now it’s like… Now it’s like Patrick wants to _remember_ , because he wants to let himself _feel_ that again, after all this time pretending it’s not there. Patrick wants to look at Pete and just _love_ him, in a way he’s never gotten to do, not in all this time, he wants to look at him with his heart in his throat and his adoration in his eyes and not a single ounce of plausible deniability.

Patrick parks in Pete’s driveway and turns his car off and looks up at Pete’s front door. He’s breathing so quickly he’s practically sobbing. Which is so stupid, this is _Pete_ , and _he_ walked out and said _good riddance_ , and granted he had _reasons_ , but now they seem so insignificant next to how desperately he’s _missed Pete_.

Patrick is at Pete’s door, Patrick is ringing Pete’s doorbell.

Pete answers, panting, with wet hair, and…

“Are you… Are you wearing a tie?” Patrick asks, staring at the undone tie dangling around Pete’s neck.

“I was going to,” Pete says breathlessly. “Sorry. I was…” He waves his hand around. “I didn’t have time to really, like—I was going to tie the tie, I do know how to tie a tie, I just was also, like—”

“You’re wearing a button-down shirt, an undone tie, and _sweatpants_ ,” Patrick remarks.

“Yeah, I couldn’t find…like…I know I _have_ other pants somewhere, it’s been… It’s just been…” Pete trails off.

Patrick looks at him. Patrick smiles. Patrick missed him _so fucking much_ , _god_. It shouldn’t have been possible to miss anything as much as he’s missed Pete Wentz.

Pete’s breath hitches, catches in his throat. His growing-back hair is dripping, a drop of water trickles down his throat into his barely buttoned shirt. He did a hasty job shaving, Patrick can see the patches of stubble he missed, the shaving cream he didn’t wipe away behind his ear.

Pete says, “Hi, Trick,” soft, and almost final, like it’s the last block shifting into place before the Tetris that wins the game.

Patrick says, “Hi,” and kisses him, without thought, without planning, without intention. He does it as naturally as his heart beats, without thought or planning or intention. He kisses him gentle, careful, until Pete exhales shakily and Patrick takes the invitation and slides his tongue into Pete’s mouth and _tastes_ him.

Pete is trembling against him, hands clenched in the front of his shirt, kissing him back in frantic gulps, before he pulls back and gasps, “Patrick, wait, stop, I wanted to—” Pete swallows, heaves for breath. His hands are still holding Patrick tight and close, and Patrick’s trying to focus on him when he’s filling his field of vision, when he’s caught in the individual shards of gold in his irises. “I wanted to get you flowers and candles, I wanted to—I didn’t want to trick you. I don’t want to trick you. I want to just—I gave you all these words, but I was always burying what I really meant, and you deserve the words straight-up, and I’m such a disaster that I didn’t just—I never just—” Pete pauses, takes a deep breath, shifts his hands to cup them around Patrick’s face.

Patrick looks at him, smiling because he can’t stop, smiling because this disaster was exactly what he’d been missing.

“I love you,” Pete says. “I just love you. I’m so in love with you, I would do _anything_ to have you—to have you—”

“Pete,” Patrick whispers, and it shuts Pete up. He closes his eyes and leans his forehead against Pete’s and continues, “Breathe with me.”

They did this, in the old days, when Pete would crawl into Patrick’s bed, itchy with insomnia, and Patrick would make him match their breaths, until Pete’s evened out, and then Patrick would sing him to sleep.

Pete matches Patrick’s breaths, his hands smoothing over Patrick’s hair, until his breaths even out.

Patrick murmurs, “Why would you do anything? You had me all along. I’m so sorry you didn’t know. I’m so sorry I didn’t make you know that.”

Pete’s breaths trip, before he recovers his rhythm.

“I’m so sorry,” Patrick says again, because now he’s started saying it, it’s like a mantra. “There was never a time I knew you that I didn’t love you. I love you now, I love you like… Multiply you times what I adore most.”

Pete sobs and shifts to throw his arms around Patrick, burying his face in his neck. “ _Patrick_ ,” he says. “ _I’m_ sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m going to be _so good_ this time—”

“Stop,” Patrick says, and rests his cheek against Pete’s wet head. “You were good the whole time. Don’t think about it like that. You’re always good, when it comes to me. We were just a little…out of sync. We need to breathe together, right? We forgot to breathe together.”

Pete breathes with him for a second. Then he lifts his head up and looks at Patrick solemnly for a long moment.

Then he reaches out to carefully touch Patrick’s hair. “This hair is…blonde. I mean, I knew you’d bleached it but this is…blonde.”

“Do you like it?” asks Patrick, curious.

“I mean, it’s yours, so yeah. I like everything you. It’s just sort of like…like my Patrick with a brand new bass line. Got to get used to the new production. Can’t get demo-itis.”

“I don’t know,” Patrick says, “honestly, I may go back to the original color. How important is the bass line anyway?”

“Asshole,” says Pete fondly, twisting Patrick’s hair around his fingers. “There’s that asshole kid I fell in love with. You can add a bit of AutoTune but the demo’s still in there.”

“AutoTune,” repeats Patrick, “take that filthy word out of your mouth.”

Pete grins, that wide open, undeniable, irresistible Pete Wentz grin. He says, “Do it for me.”

So Patrick does.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end! Or the beginning. :-)
> 
> Thank you to everyone who's followed along, and thank you to q and whirling for the prompt. I think that's it for me this year (save for the Advent drabbles), so I will see all of you in 2020! Have a wonderful last couple of weeks of the year, and let me be the first to wish you a very happy, trope-filled new year!

Eames isn’t exactly napping but he also isn’t exactly awake when the buzzer sounds.

And Arthur is out buying cold medicine because Arthur is convinced his death is imminent or something. Eames would honestly be charmed by Arthur’s fussing, really he would be, except that Eames feels terrible and can’t be charmed by anything at the moment.

The buzzer sounds again.

“Bloody hell,” Eames sighs up to the ceiling feelingly, and then drags himself off the sofa over to the door. “Yes?” he says tiredly.

“It’s Pete Wentz,” says the voice on the other end.

Eames blinks in shock at the buzzer. Because…how many people could find Arthur’s flat? Seriously? The fact that Pete Wentz is there is so shocking that Eames buzzes him up. He considers if he needs a gun, and then thinks he’s being ridiculous, this is some washed-up rock star, and then thinks that this washed-up rock star found Arthur’s flat, and while he’s having the debate Pete Wentz knocks on the door.

Eames is sick, so his head is muddy and slow, and honestly he feels so terrible that he almost doesn’t mind if Pete Wentz has a gun, probably a gun would be really good at cleaning out his sinuses.

So he opens the door.

Pete Wentz is dressed. In, like, actual clothes. Skinny jeans and a t-shirt that reads _World Class Master Baiter_ , over a picture of a fish on a hook. His hair has been straightened and is artfully tousled. He looks much less like a washed-up rock star and more like just a rock star. One with questionable taste in double entendres. Eames says this as someone with excellent taste in double entendres.

Wentz looks at Eames and smiles. “Mr. Eames. Fancy seeing you here.”

“What are you doing here?” Eames asks, very intelligently.

“You know,” Wentz says, “the thing is: I’m not stupid. It’s an easy mistake to make. I get it. I don’t do a whole lot to dispel the idea.”

Eames is sick but his brain _is_ still sluggishly rolling around. “Better to be underestimated.”

“Always,” says Wentz, and then adds fervently, “ _Always_. The secret to my success is low expectations.”

“What is it you want?” Eames asks warily.

“I’m going to pay you,” Wentz replies, “even though you didn’t do a single bit of incepting.”

Eames blinks slowly, sniffles loudly, and then says, “You might as well come in, I have to go blow my nose.”

“Yeah,” Wentz says as he walks into the flat, “you sound awful.”

“It’s a cold,” Eames says from the tissue box by the sofa.

“I can hear that. You know what’s good for a cold? Echinacea. It has a lot of health benefits.”

Eames really isn’t interested in this medical advice. He says, “Mr. Wentz, I’ll have you know that we—”

“You told Patrick that I’m in love with him. There was no inception involved. You had a five-minute conversation with him. Did you really think I wasn’t going to find out? I mean, I guess you don’t know us, so maybe you wouldn’t know that we tell each other _everything_. Or we used to. Every tiny minute thought. So surely, _surely_ , eventually Patrick was going to tell me of his mysterious British visitor who freaked him out and then told him he should let me love him the way I wanted to. I mean, _really_.”

It wasn’t that Eames hadn’t realized that Wentz would eventually find out. It was that he’d thought Wentz would never be able to _find_ them. Eames considers what to say, and decides on, “Hmm,” because he feels terrible.

Wentz says, “Here’s the thing: I’m not angry.”

“You’re not?” says Eames, lifting his eyebrows.

Wentz shakes his head. “No. Actually, you did me a huge favor, and I thank you. I was already having a nervous breakdown over having manipulated Patrick into this situation, and I was getting ready for a great big confession, and then Patrick told me about meeting you and I realized there was no trick, you just told him to stop being an idiot and act on how he felt.”

Eames says honestly, “He was already in love with you. He’s always been in love with you. All we had to do was make him stop being a coward about it.”

“I get that now. And, I mean, you did me the favor of telling him and making him…making him do something about it, basically. So, like, I got everything I ever wanted. I got _more_ than what I wanted. Patrick got out of bed this morning and started writing _music_ with me, like, it’s perfect, it’s all perfect, I don’t mind paying you for that, not _at all_.” Wentz’s eyes are shining with joy, and Eames can’t help but think that it’s sweet. Like, clearly his sinuses are affecting his normal reaction, because he should be miffed at being found out so easily, but Wentz is so clearly happy, is so much the opposite of the dull, small person he was when they first met, that Eames feels a little bit proud of his role in that.

But still. “So you just dropped by to thank me in person?” Eames asks drily. That seems unlikely.

“I dropped by to make sure you knew you didn’t get away with it,” Wentz retorts. “I’m feeling a lot better and remembered that I do have some sense of dignity and I didn’t want to be the idiot you and Mr. Arthur laughed at while you cleaned out my bank account. So. I wanted you to know. I’m on to you. I’m so much on to you I _found_ you. Admit you’re impressed.”

“Maybe a little,” Eames admits, because he’s _sick_. “How did you find us?”

“ _Paparazzi_ ,” Wentz says. “God, they are fucking good at their jobs, and I know _so many_ fucking paparazzi.”

Eames files that bit of information away. Maybe the dreamsharing world should do more recruiting among the paparazzi.

Wentz says, “Okay. That’s it. I hope you feel better. Drink lots of tea with honey and lemon, Patrick totally swears by it when he’s sick, and Patrick is the world’s worst patient, he’s such a baby when he’s sick.” Wentz pauses, his hand on Arthur’s door, and then turns back slowly. “He’s a huge baby when he’s sick. I know, because I’ve always been the one taking care of him.”

“Okay,” Eames agrees, confused, because he doesn’t give a fuck about this.

Wentz smiles at him and says softly, “Right. Yeah. Of course. You know that thing you just did for me? You should do it for yourself. You _know_ he loves you. It’s not even like he ran off and is refusing to speak to you. He’s right here still taking care of you. Why the fuck wouldn’t you pull him in? Stop being a coward.” And with that, Wentz leaves.

***

Arthur comes back from his trip to the drugstore out of sorts. Eames is sitting up on the sofa, awake, so Arthur fumes at him, “I don’t understand why Sudafed is a controlled substance. I had to burn an identity just to buy you some fucking Sudafed. I’ve got a closet full of an actual dangerous drug, and it was harder for me to buy you cold medicine.” He drops the Sudafed in Eames’s lap.

Eames doesn’t look properly appreciative of the effort Arthur just went to. He keeps staring at Arthur.

Arthur is suddenly alarmed. Maybe Eames got worse while Arthur was out. Maybe Eames is...really, really sick. So sick he’s out of it. Arthur says, “Eames?”

Eames says slowly, “Pete Wentz was here while you were gone.”

Arthur blinks. Arthur says, “Pete Wentz was _here_?” Then he brushes Eames’s forehead with the back of his hand, because clearly Eames has a high fever and is hallucinating.

Only Eames isn’t warm.

Arthur frowns.

Eames says, “I’m not hallucinating. He was here.”

“ _How_?” says Arthur. That should have been impossible.

“Paparazzi,” Eames answers thoughtfully. “Do you think maybe we should recruit from the paparazzi?”

Arthur regards him for a moment, then says, “I think you’re sick and you should take some Sudafed and you should go to sleep—"

Eames catches his fingers around Arthur’s wrist, and Arthur stills. Eames touches his wrists all the time but normally it’s to slip Somnacin into his veins. There’s no reason to be touching him now. Arthur looks at his wrist, then back up at Eames.

“I’m so disgusting right now,” Eames says. “You deserve better than me doing this while I’m so revolting. But I think he’s right and if I don’t do it now, I’m going to lose my nerve.”

“Who’s right?” Arthur asks. He’s bewildered, both by the conversation and by Eames touching him.

“Wentz was so happy. He was here and he was glowing with it. That’s what we did for him. We did _that_. It was really such a kind thing to do, and so simple, and the result was... And he’s right. Why wouldn’t I do that for me?”

Arthur can’t follow the conversation. He says, “Eames, you’re sick and—"

“And I love you,” Eames says bluntly.

Arthur, wide-eyed, stares at him, shocked.

“I love you and you fucking _know_ that,” Eames continues. “What’s more: You love me back, and I think you know that as well. So what the fuck are we doing, Arthur? Why the fuck do we dance around it the way we do? When the fuck did either one of us become a coward, hmm?”

Arthur doesn’t know what to say. This is a conversation they were never supposed to have. He doesn’t have anything to say because he never expected to have to say anything. He should have a response to this, but his response is an exhalation of air because he literally does not know what else to do.

Eames says thickly, “Fuck it, I should just kiss you, but I really need to blow my nose, excuse me, darling,” and lets go of Arthur’s wrist so he can lean over and grab the tissues.

Arthur takes a stunned step away from him, stares down at him, stays silent.

Eames blows his nose and says, “The thing is, love. The thing is that I’m sick, and here you are taking care of me, cooking me dinner, burning an identity to get me Sudafed. Look at all you’re doing already. Wouldn’t it be better to do all that _and_ have good sex, too?”

Arthur just keeps staring at him. His mind is...a blank. A...sex blank.

Eames looks at him and raises his eyebrows and says, “Wouldn’t it? Don’t you think?”

Arthur thinks he’s going to have to say something at some point and it might as well be now. He manages, “You’re leaking everywhere, I’m not having sex with you.”

Eames smiles. “I didn’t say we ought to have sex _now_. I agree, I’m disgusting. But I think we should have sex in the future. What do you think?”

Arthur’s sex-blank brain prompts him to say, “We can give it a try.”

Eames smiles wider. “I bet we turn out to be good at it.”

Arthur doesn’t mind it this time when Eames is right.

_fin_


End file.
